In Roll Through the Ages, players roll dice to obtain commodities and workers to build up their civilizations. Dice can be rerolled twice unless they come up as a hazard. Players use their workers to build infrastructure to support additional works or to build monuments that are worth points. At the same time, commodities are gathered that allow your civilization to develop. Once all monuments or five developments are achieved by a player, the game ends at the end of the round, points are counted, and a victor is declared.

The game takes its name from Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization, although the two games have different styles and designers.